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55 with peacocks?

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I have a friend with a bunch of tanks who might be willing to part with a 55. If I can get it I want more africans. i am very intrigued with the colors and low aggression of peacocks. Can I do peacocks in a 55? If so, do I go all male, or x-male to y-female? I've got time to toss around some ideas... I'm getting married this Saturday, so I won't be doing anything with this tank idea for a few weeks at least... maybe longer...

Yes you can, all male group and dont do the same type of peacock, you need to do 1 of each species otherwise they have bad conspecific aggression and one will be drab (only the dominant male colors). You could do a colony of 2-3 types 1m-3 or 4 females but if its a show tank, just go straight to the all males. Ob, sunshine yellow benga's, red shoulders.. you have a large list to choose from.

Yes, they will be different types of aulonocara. If you get them from a lfs, fine, but go somewhere reputable... I would pay the extra money to KGtropicals.com or somewhere that really can label what you are getting.

As for the fish, I have two LFS's that I can trust for good, healthy fish. If I'm not breeding I don't see why identifying individual species is all that important, as long as I know they are in fact peacocks, and are different species. Am I wrong?

Yeah, since you're not breeding the key is that they look different. Fish don't fight each other according to the labels we give them. Point being, they're all the same species (aulonocara) so as long as the types you choose (and boy there are a lot) don't look the same, you'll be fine.

As an aside, I love peacocks, many people say theyre boring because they don't constantly kill each other like mbuna, but i find they have some of the best personalities of all my cichlids!